Jaitley skips over Doklam in speech

He talked of last year’s surgical strikes

Arun Jaitley

In the customary address to the Armed forces on the eve of Independence Day, Defence Minister Arun Jaitley on Monday avoided references of the ongoing standoff with China at Doklam even as he recalled the premptive surgical strikes by the Army last year to prevent infiltration by terrorists.

“Despite our repeated requests to our Western neighbour not to use our territory occupied by it not only to train terrorists but also use it as launch pad for pushing these militants into India, such nefarious activities continued. We ran out of patience as these terrorists were not only targeting our armed forces but also civilians… the Indian Army conducted surgical strikes on 29 September last year at several of these launch pads to pre-empt infiltration by terrorists,” Mr. Jaitley said.

He added that during these counter-terrorism operations, militants and those supporting them suffered significant casualties.

Welfare measures

Armies of India and China have been engaged in a stand-off since June 16 after Indian soldiers prevented Chinese Army from constructing a road in disputed territory near the India-Bhutan-China trijunction.

In addition, Mr. Jaitley dedicated a major part of his speech to the welfare measures taken by the government for military personnel.